49655971
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
The Canadian military is currently testing a $620,000 hybrid-electric stealth snowmobile. Testing includes speed, towing capacity, endurance, mobility, usability, and of course, noise emissions.
The testing and most other information about the stealth snowmobile is secret and very little information has been released other than the fact that it does exist. One document reads ""The noise level of an internal combustion engine cannot be reduced to an acceptable level for missions where covertness may be required, especially given the increased propagation of sound in cold, dry, Arctic air". Therefore, National Defence's research agency is "pursuing the development of a 'silent' snowmobile for winter operations in Canada, specifically in the Arctic."
Michael Byers, an Arctic policy expert, questions the need for a stealth snowmobile. "I don't see a whole lot of evidence that criminals and terrorists are scooting around Canada's North on snowmobiles and that we have to sneak up on them," he said.
49435921
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
"For [the] junk removal business, it’s financial fraud that poses the greatest danger. Money is frequently moving between customers, truck drivers and corporate staff, and cash can go missing if people aren’t paying attention." 1-800-Got-Junk uses advanced software to analyze where the money is going. "For instance, Junk Net can quickly calculate the average job size, average job transaction cost and average dumping costs over a 30-day period. If the job size and transaction costs fall but the dumping costs remain the same, then there’s a chance that money is going missing."
46501303
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
The local privilege escalation bug described here gives you root on any fully updated Centos 6.4 box.
46313971
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
An acquaintance of mine who owns an small business is trying to outsource a programming project by putting it up for bid/proposal on some of the "offshore freelance coder" websites. She personally knows nothing about programming, which is why she is putting it out for bid in the first place. The proposals that she is getting apparently vary by a factor of about four in terms of time required and cost, and the lowest costs don't necessarily correspond to the least time required for the project. Since there is such a huge variation in the proposals and since she knows nothing about programming other than "this is what I want it to do", how can she evaluate the proposals and avoid getting screwed, especially since the proposals she is getting come from "far away places" where she likely wouldn't have much recourse in the event of a problem. What happens if it doesn't work the way that she thinks it will after she's paid for it?
43372035
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
Police in Singapore have received many reports of a blackmail ring that uses attractive women to seduce men via webcam/chat. "They would commence a webcam conversation with the victims and initiate cybersex by undressing themselves first before persuading the male victims to appear nude or perform sexual acts in front of the webcams", according to the Singapore Police Force. The victim then received an email and/or phone call demanding $50,000.
42376439
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
In what appears to be a more-and-more common occurrence, Ahmed Al-Khabez has been expelled from Dawson College in Montreal after he discovered a flaw in the software that the college (and apparently all other colleges across Quebec) uses to track student information.
His original intention was to write a mobile app to allow students to access their college account more easily, but during the development of his app he discovered "sloppy coding" that would allow anyone to access all of the information that the system contains about any student.
He was initially ordered to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that he would never talk about the flaw that he discovered, and he was expelled from the college shortly afterward.
42222901
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
A researcher says that some letters are over valued and some are under-valued in Scrabble, due to recent changes to the lists of allowable words. Z and X are now much easier to play and should be worth less, while U, M and G should be worth more than they are now. Joshua Lewis wrote a program to re-calculate the value of each letter to better reflect the current usage. The co-president of the North American Scrabble Players Association says that he often hears criticism of Scrabble's scoring system, but any change would bring about "catastrophic outrage". A spokesman for Mattel says that they have no plans to change the game.
40795525
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
Red has announced the availability of their Redray player (4k resolution video player) as well as Odemax, which is a distribution system for independent filmmakers to get their movies into both homes and movie theatres.
The hardware aspect of this is neat, but the distribution system could be disruptive to the current Hollywood studio system (and the MPAA)
An official announcement regarding the Odemax distribution system will be made at the Sundance Film Festival.
38321891
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
Japanese researchers have shown that looking at photos of cute baby animals improves your productivity.
37495609
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
The first color movies, taken in 1902, have recently been restored by the British National Media Museum.
37401235
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
A Canadian musician put an image of a penny on his album cover. Now for every 2000 copies of the album he creates he has to fill out an application, wait for approval and be charged $1,200.
I never realized that images of a coin would be covered by copyright.
33907933
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
While a US Congressional investigation found over 1800 cases involving over one million counterfeit parts from China in American-made military equipment, the Canadian defence minister isn't concerned, even though Canada purchases its military equipment from the same contractors as the US does.
32758611
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
My wife got a pacemaker last Thursday and now that she's home we are finding
that we have to make a few changes.
She (and I) spend a lot of time on our computers. She told me that she felt
dizzy after sitting in front of her computer for several minutes, and I figured
out that it was her wireless Microsoft mouse that was at fault, probably
because she has her hand right on a radio transmitter when using the mouse. I
removed that and replaced it with a wired mouse. She felt much better
immediately after I removed the wireless mouse, so that was obviously at least
part of the problem.
I am also thinking that I could move her computer far away from her if I
have to, using USB extension cables and a monitor extension cable. I haven't
done that yet, though — I'm not sure if it will be necessary or not.
I did get her a wired phone for her today to put on computer desk to replace the
wireless phone that she has been using up to now.
This all amounts to ongoing experimentation to find out what's going to work
and be beneficial, and what won't.
Do any of you folks have any experience with this pacemaker stuff? Any
suggestions for what I can do to minimize or eliminate anything that might
affect her pacemaker?
It's a whole new world of learning for both of us.
31445735
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
Can you tell when you're talking to a robot telemarketer? They will even ask for you by name!
26053454
submission
innocent_white_lamb writes:
Emily Cier writes books about making quilts. Manufacturers send her free samples of their fabrics in the hope that she will use their materials in her books. Now a fabric designer is threatening to sue her for "tens of thousands of dollars, plus lawyer fees, destroying all copies of the book, etc." for including a photo of a quilt made with their fabric design in one of her books. Amazing, considering that the fabric was provided to her by the manufacturer for, apparently, that exact purpose.
